Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Olympic New Beginnings

The Winter Olympics are here again! What better theme for a New Beginnings? You can talk about going for gold—setting goals and accomplishing them. Have your girls march down the red carpet isle with their flag and introduce each theme. Give out awards and use lots of gold and silver everywhere...and golly—you could even fashion an Olympic torch out of the Young Women's logo.

Decorating Ideas:
During mutual have the girls cut out the Olympic rings and a whole TON of snowflakes.
Print off the invitations and help the girls assemble them as well. (Directions and printout at the end of this post).

Make winter cupcakes for refreshments. Don't forget the gold wrapper.

This cupcake display is just three boxes wrapped in white with ribbons wrapped around each one and then stacked. Brilliant!

Ok. Are you ready to know how we did some of this? Let's start with the flags. I'm sure you've heard of freezer paper stenciling by now? Print each value on the paper and then cut them out with an Exacto knife. Iron them onto the fabric and stencil them in.

The flags were 1/2 yard each. I made a casing on the side of each one which slipped easily over a wooden dowel. The flags stayed on nicely—and they are removable for washing or if someone wants to hang them instead (which we did the next year for a Royal Theme...you know, flags hanging in the "great hall"....)

Drill the appropriate size holes in a 2 x 4 and, stick the doweled flags in they display nicely. These flags have been used for various occasions, even the Stake has been using them. So they are worth the time investment.

Next up: Snowflakes.

Print up a snowflake pattern you like. Tape the papers onto something flat and moveable. Then tape wax paper over that.

Next whip up a batch of Royal icing and trace over the snowflakes. Don't forget to add a toothpick. These will take about 1-3 days to dry completely.

Lastly are the invitations.

Use the file below to put your own information in. (Fit the file into your document so it is 8.5 inches tall —the FILE, so it includes the white space above and below the crop marks) Two will fit on an 11 x 8.5 paper). Cut them out following the crop marks.

Purchase multicolored paper. If you are holding the paper horizontally, you will want to cut a strip off the bottom about 2 inches tall so your invitation comes just to the top and bottom.

Paste the invitation in the middle and fold both flaps in.

Punch holes in either side of the oval cut-out and thread ribbon through, tie in the back. Pass them out and you're good to go.

Below are the invitation and oval templates. Click on the image, it will come up...then right click and choose "save as" to save it to your computer.

And now you're set! Just Google "Olympic New Beginnings" and you'll find all kinds of program ideas.

I love your ideas!! I had a couple of questions for you - what kind of circle template did you use for the rings? I saw you cut them out of poster board...and then did you paint them the colors you needed?